Urban Exploration A New Extreme Sports Challenge

Spelunking and cave exploration have been around for a long time.  Primal man have used caves and explored caves since the dawn of time.  Extreme sports enthusiasts have come up with a different kind of spelunking. They visit and explore abandoned buildings, factories, and abandoned industrial facilities for fun.  The explorers climb through burned out buildings looking for challenging paths that will test them both athletically and mentally.  Urban exploration is a relatively new sport and the dangers have not been all recorded. 

One type of urban exploration is to go into abandoned buildings.  Here the explorers can see the works of the visitors before in the form of graffiti and vandalism.  The dangers are associated to how bad the building has deteriorated. The danger could come in the form of collapsed roofs, rotten flooring, and broken glass. There might be evidence that dangerous chemicals or materials have been used in the building the explorer health will be affected if they come in contact with these. The use of a breathing mask or respirator is advisable so that you won't breathe any of the contaminants. Another danger is the possibility of violent homeless people who may have claimed the building for their own.  This could be an individual or group of people who will react when you invade their territory.

Old amusement parks are also a good place to go on an urban exploration trip.  Extreme sports enthusiast will have a blast climbing and roping from abandoned roller coasters and tunneling through themed rides.  The explorers may have to use swimming trunks as they go on water ridden rides.  Most of the rides are located in large buildings that have back rooms and viewing balconies that the explorers can climb on.  Dangers to these type of exploration again depends on the age of the building and how much it has deteriorated. This type of urban exploration would need to have specialized equipment such as mountaineering gear, ropes, and clothing. More adventuresome extreme sports enthusaists might want to up the annie by exploring factory sites or old hospitals. These sprawling complexs can add to the adventure as you go from room to room and building to building. These buildings sometimes have motion sensors or guard dogs that will change the level of your exploration into something a little more exciting.

Besides the excitement, urban explorers take pictures of some their finds to add a sense of archiology to outing.  Fans of graffiti will be able to collect pictures from artists long gone. Some really interesting things have been found during urban exploration outings.  Lost records or personal affects have been found that have been worth a fair amount of money.  Though some extreme sports enthusiasts might find this sport a little dull,  the sport is picking up popularity with a whole new population who are not athletic and usually do not participate in high energy sports. Anybody can urban explore is they keep safety in mind and plan their explorations carefully.